


Day 3: Secret

by choomchoom



Series: Femslash February 2020 [2]
Category: Transformers (IDW 2019)
Genre: Anxiety, Communication Issues, Established Relationship, F/F, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Nautica is acting suspicious. Historically, that means that she's planning to put herself in danger. And that is unacceptable.
Relationships: Nautica/Road Rage
Series: Femslash February 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620400
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Day 3: Secret

Nautica was a terrible liar.

On a regular day, if Nautica had been exiting the comms room while Road Rage happened to be walking by, she would have waved if she was busy or fallen into step with Road Rage to catch up if she wasn’t. Today, though, Nautica caught Road Rage’s optics, looked petrified for half a klik, then pivoted on a heel and strode briskly away.

The thing was, Road Rage would be fine with Nautica keeping secrets from her if the secrets Nautica tended to try to keep weren’t consistently things that she knew Road Rage would disapprove of because of their capacity to get Nautica killed. Nautica wasn’t a particularly private person, at least not where Road Rage was concerned, but both of them understood that Road Rage saw Nautica’s level of concern with her personal safety as lackluster.

So Road Rage felt only the tiniest flash of guilt as she poked her helm into the comms room and asked the tech, “Was Nautica just here?”

The tech nodded.

“Did she make that call to – ah, slag, what was that place even called – I have the frequency, but I don’t know if she wanted me to do it or if she was going to take care of it herself.”

“The call she made was routed to Danza Vector, if that’s what you’re asking about,” the tech said.

“Oh, okay, great, thanks.”

That was Road Rage’s suspicions confirmed. Danza Vector was still recovering from a civil war that had lasted most of the last century, and safe portions the planet were few and far between even now. It was also nearby and on the list of locations that the crew could take this cycle’s shore leave, but there was no way Nautica was simply planning a vacation – she hated desert planets.

Road Rage resigned herself to staying on high alert until she figured out what it was that Nautica was trying to hide.

* * *

Road Rage let herself into the room she shared with Nautica. She entered the room to the sound of Nautica’s equipment locker door slamming loud enough for the whole hallway to hear.

“Everything okay?” she asked Nautica, who was standing stiff as ununtrium in front of the closed locker.

“Yes!” Nautica squeaked, about two octaves two high for it to be true.

“You sure?”

Nautica seemed to recover a little, her face relaxing into a smile. “I’m sure.” She walked over and kissed Road Rage, who had no intention of pushing her away no matter how suspicious and disappointed she was. “Hi. Welcome back. How was maintenance duty?”

Road Rage let the lie go and tried to vent around the knowledge that Nautica felt the need to keep something that was clearly important secret from her.

* * *

Road Rage had been doing her best to hustle back to her room after shifts, in the hopes of gaining any more clues about what Nautica was up to. They were in matter transport distance of Danza Vector now, and Road Rage’s processor was already overclocked with worry.

The worry went into overdrive when Nautica wasn’t in their quarters.

Road Rage drove recklessly through the halls to Nautica’s office, Starscream’s office, the lower observation deck where Nautica sometimes liked to go to be alone, and in desperation, the medical wing. No sign of Nautica anywhere.

She changed course the astrosecond she got a ping from the matter transporter tech, and read it as she raced toward the transport platform. _Your presence has been requested on Danza Vector_ and a set of coordinates. The resentment she felt at Nautica’s ridiculous insistence on keeping this a secret from Road Rage until she was _actively in danger_ paled in comparison to the panic that twisted her spark as she thought about what could be happening down there. Maybe Nautica had been attacked by bandits, or was being held for ransom by one of the still-feuding factions, or, or –

She flipped into root mode at the door of the transport deck. The tech looked at her, unimpressed, and gestured her toward the platform without a word. Road Rage shut her optics to stave off the dizziness that always came with traveling this way and didn’t open them until she felt her pedes rematerialize on solid desert glass.

Nautica was right in front of her, evidently unharmed, and part of Road Rage wanted to crumple to her knees with relief. Her well-honed combat instincts overrode that urge, though, and she spun in a circle, arm guns locked and loaded, scanning for threats.

After two circles, she couldn’t find it. The horizon was clear on all sides, and they were miles from the nearest city, which looked like really more of a town. With the possibility of an _immediate_ threat dismissed, Road Rage turned to Nautica.

She’d been smiling when Road Rage had first landed, Road Rage abruptly realized, but she wasn’t smiling anymore. “Is everything okay?” she asked when Road Rage finally met her optics.

“ _What_? Why don’t you tell me? What’s going on? Why are you here?”

Nautica reeled back a little at Road Rage’s tone and Road Rage took a few deep vents, trying to match her mood. It was almost like _Nautica_ didn’t think that she was in danger. And if Nautica wasn’t in danger, why was Road Rage here?

“What’s going on, Nautica?”

Nautica spread her hands to the sides as if gesturing to everything. The glass desert that stretched empty for miles in every direction, the sun on the horizon that was starting to edge toward setting, the tarp set up behind Nautica with a bottle of engex – _nice_ engex, the kind that you couldn’t get anywhere but the south pole of Cybertron – and a stack of energon treats (the swirly ones that Road Rage loved and the distillers on the ship almost never bothered to make). “Shore leave. There’s a mech-friendly inn in the town a few miles out, and we’re going to watch a meteor shower over the glass. You agreed to go to Lororia last cycle even though you hate moist climates but I knew you’d feel guilty if you made me come here, so I made it a surprise.”

Road Rage sat herself down on the glass, drained. The absence of a threat had finally worked its way through her processor.

“Seriously, are you okay? Do you want to warp back?”

“No, _no_ , this is _awesome_. I just…need a minute.”

Nautica gave her a minute. She walked over to the tarp and uncapped the engex, pouring it into cubes slowly and deliberately. Road Rage had vented most of the stress out of her systems when Nautica approached, holding the cubes. She sat down next to Road Rage, not quite touching, and held one of the cubes out to her.

Road Rage clinked her cube with Nautica’s in a toast and took a sip. “You can’t do that to me,” she said, once she was certain that she could be calm about it.

“Do what?”

“Keep secrets for my sake. You’re allowed to not tell me things, obviously, but – you don’t. You don’t hide things from me unless you want to put yourself in danger and you don’t want me to stop you. That’s what I thought this was."

“You really think I would do that?” Nautica sounded serious.

Road Rage turned toward her, scrutinized her. She _looked_ serious. “You really think you wouldn’t?”

“Of course not!”

“Bethzheba. Illuria. Talis-”

“Those were all before we were even friends, let alone together. I wouldn’t do that _now_.”

“But can you understand why you scared me?”

Nautica entwined the fingers of her free hand with Road Rage’s. Road Rage tugged on it gently, inviting Nautica to lean back against her. “I suppose I’d hoped that you would trust me.”

“Past experience tells me that sometimes I have to pick between trusting you and keeping you safe.”

Nautica sighed. “Illuria. Talis. Yeah. I deserve that.”

“But…if you’re willing to be honest with me when you’re thinking about doing something dangerous, I can try to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“That sounds like a good start.”

The top of Nautica’s helm was tucked under Road Rage’s chin, and Road Rage hardly had to move to kiss it. _Forgiven_.

“Oh! You can already see the sunset starting over there. There’s an entire system of mysticism on this planet based on the colors the sun makes in the glass, did you know that? I could do without the grit in all my transformation seams, but I’ve always kind of wanted to see it up close.”

Road Rage pulled Nautica closer and finally let herself relax.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working off of this prompt list https://choomchoom.tumblr.com/post/190496147157/femslashfeb-any-world-any-fandom-any
> 
> I am sort of taking prompts for this series - feel free to suggest stuff, but I won't make any promises because the schedule is already a lot.


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